


Saviour of the Dreaming Dead (Obsidian Heart Mix)

by Starcrossedsky



Series: Obsidian Heart Mix [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Other, Stormblood Spoilers, generic second person wol, the trippy brainsharing fray-wol conglomerate adventures continue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 08:24:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11665314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starcrossedsky/pseuds/Starcrossedsky
Summary: And it seems this is the life I was fated to lead, dreams dead in the water (and you oughta let them pass)Don't neglect the heart.(Or, how to deal with your grief deciding to grow legs and a face of its own; sooner or later, you knew you would have to deal with it. Probably by punching it in the face.)





	Saviour of the Dreaming Dead (Obsidian Heart Mix)

**Author's Note:**

> WELL the last one sure did... get... a lot of feedback... [dead-eyed stare] second most popular fic of the year within 24 hours...
> 
> So uh. Okay. We are definitely out of canoe territory and here's this, guys.

Seasons come, and seasons go. _Nidhogg_ comes, and Nidhogg goes. Monuments, friends, reclaiming another home you thought was lost. Warriors of Darkness ( _ **ha, as though we aren't darker than any of them**_ ), Ascians, primals, a legatus. Ilberd, _Papalymo_.

As so many other things come and go, your little house in the Brume, with Sid and Rielle, stays.

\----

(You wish Estinien hadn't run off so quickly. You want to know if he was okay, want to know if Nidhogg's shadow haunted him like yours does.)

(You won't ask Lyse like it was like, living someone else's life. _No_ , Fray, the situations aren't really comparable.)

(You feel Unukalhai's gaze from under the blank white mask. Children always know - children with the Echo in their bones and Ascians for masters, even more so.)

\----

Sid and Rielle stay, and when you're with them you can let _go_ , let Fray's harsh words and sharp laugh, so unlike your own, bubble out of your throat. It's different from when you let go behind your sword, with a helm in place over your face, and come out of the fight not always sure what you're going to find behind it.

You aren't afraid, with them, that they might find out that you've let something strange and fell and dead crawl into your skin and make its home there. They already know. Fray gave you a home, too, with them.

In Idyllshire, they're building something new out of the corpse of the old. You go there a lot, measuring their progress against your own.

\----

You don't hear the crack, at first. You think it's only your heart breaking.

( _ **Well, it is. Damn good job you've done of it, too.**_ )

It isn't until Sid says something that you turn, and he's there, that friend-faced boy on a mission - oh, and how that mission makes your heart ache.

( _ **Maybe you shouldn't have been ignoring it, then.**_ )

You're not so stupid that you won't listen when it has something that important to tell you. Fray at least beat that out of you.

(It honestly doesn't occur to you, until much later, that Sid had recognized the boy's name.)

\----

 _Why won't you see?_ Myste screams at you with his eyes. There's no judgement in them, there's too much judgement, and something in you rebels, because how dare he look at you with _his_ eyes, run distressed fingers through _her_ hair.

You deprive the world of its temporary white-armored addition with perhaps too much vehemence, and then duty calls. To Othard you set out.

( _ **Running from it again? Well, at least you're going quite a bit farther this time. Not far enough to get away, though. It's never far enough.**_ )

\----

There is something uncanny about Zenos yae Galvus, something that makes you shiver alone at night, that makes Fray boil.

It's almost a relief when he takes his helmet off. Disturbingly blank as his expression is, painfully _young_ as he is, there was a part of you that was scared that that bloodthirsty thing was going to peel off its mask and look like you.

Wouldn't be the first time, after all.

\----

Being surrounded by Xaela in the steppes is in some ways amazing. In other ways, it's awful. The number of times you think you see Sid out of the corner of your eye - 

It's mostly the lack of Rielle that keeps you from making any awkward mistakes. The two are never apart now, not really, and while Sid has plenty of doubles and distant relations out here, there's nothing to duplicate the constant light at his elbow. 

It makes you want home like nothing else. So while everyone else prepares to take back Doma, you _do_ , charging back off to Ishgard and throwing an entire sack of gil at the incredulous aetheryte caretaker.

\----

Of course, Myste is still there, all too ready to drag your past blunders back to the surface. The temptation to have Rielle take him exploring around outside Tailfeather is great.

(A large part of you, _definitely_ more than Fray, just wants to grab Sid and dig your fingers into the floating mess of his hair. Not even anything more than that - just to feel him alive in your hands.)

You let him do as he wants, shed some justified blood, watch a girl say goodbyes that will never be heard. When Myste walks off dejected, you tell her about Idyllshire, where they don't care what you've done. Where nobody asks questions, and they build new lives out of the rubble.

She thanks you, quietly surprised, and then you've got to go help Sid with the kids.

( _ **They're our kids now, are they? Ha, like either of us knows how to be a parent.**_ )

\----

You get to run your fingers through Sid's hair after all, on the pretense of checking him for brain damage. It's thick and wiry, not unlike the horsehair bristles that were commonplace all over the steppes. He grumbles, lightly smacking your hands away, while Rielle giggles and Myste stares like he's seeing happiness for the first time.

 _That's what living's about,_ you think at him, your broken heart, as hard as you can.

Your heart doesn't answer. You can't be sure if it hears you.

Off to Moghome, then.

\----

You agree with Sid completely. Your heart is a little shite.

Fray sees their master and he aches and he burns and he wants to _touch_ , wants to be real as badly as he wants to reject the illusion. You pull out your blade instead, rising to the challenge as you always do. 

While you are rising, Sid is falling. _**He never thought he was good enough**_ is the only coherent thought you get out of Fray before he goes down and doesn't get back up.

There is _nothing_ coherent after that. You are whole in purpose (or at least as close to it as you can be, with Myste hiding and watching behind a fallen stone wall), and it doesn't matter if he's your master or not because Sid _isn't getting up, **get up you dumb bastard, ARE YOU GOING TO LET SOME ILLUSION BEAT YOU LIKE THAT?**_

(If you didn't think that Fray was real before, you would now. If you had tried to stop him, if you hadn't been right there _with_ him, you think he simply would have taken what he needed, there, in that moment, and left you to sort out the mess later.

Fortunately, you don't try to stop him.)

It's enough to send your master sliding back, leaning on his sword, and while Rielle rushes to Sid's side, he looks at you and he _sees_. Then he snorts lightly, whispers words for your ears alone. "Even death won't stop you from taking care of him, will it?"

"Of course not," Fray says with your voice. "Just what do you take me for?"

You see yourself reflected in his eyes, your own like _flames in the dark_ , and Ompagne nods like he expected no different. Taking him back, in a single slash, gives you a warmth and confidence that none of the others did.

Of course, then you still have to help Sid back to Moghome. _**Leaving him in the care of moogles for a while is a worthy punishment for that poor showing.**_

You smile to yourself, knowing that what Fray really means is _he lived, and that's all that matters._

\----

Doma falls. Doma rises. 

It's time to go back to Gyr Abania.

\----

You almost lose them, Alphinaud and Alisaie, your other children. Not to blade but to primal's tempting breath, to a goddess with the deadly offer of drifting, of making the pain go away.

But you don't. And afterwards you go out into the Peaks and you scream, all of your feelings, at a runaway dragoon and a fully mortal goddess, who left you alone with them.

When you are done you hear someone in mail, walking away, and then a _jump_ , but you don't have any intention of taking the words back.

\----

Sid and Rielle go home. You are a little envious. You let Myste lead you into Gyr Abania instead, following a trail of grief, wondering when he's going to stop pretending, to tell you what he really wants.

Your heart finds a man who has given up, watches a memory stumble to its conclusion. Your heart decries that it isn't fair.

Fray says, in you, _**Life isn't fair, boy**_ , and Fray says, _**All flames go out eventually.**_ You press a hand to your lips and bow your head before the god of a man who lost all his reasons for burning.

You go home, and help Rielle change Sid's bandages, running your fingers over his scales when she isn't looking, over his skin, frost-pale but burning with warmth.

You will burn for much longer yet.

\----

You will certainly never tell the beast tamer that it is technically you who should replace the chocobos. After today, Myste will be - 

_**What? Another echo, to keep me company?** _

\----

Of course he goes for them. He probably watched you split up. Your heart knows where your fire lies.

He calls shadows. You cut them down. And when he calls more, your shadow says, _**to hell with this**_ , and takes some of that power for himself.

(Dark knights are masters of making their emotions real. Sid isn't as potent at it as you, isn't as _broken_ as you, but you can still feel his shock as though it were a physical thing. And then his longing, _oh_ , the memory of scales and large fingers tracing your jaw, and _**Now really isn't the time for that, is it? Later, later.**_ )

Your little, broken heart is afraid. Your shadow takes up Sid's blade, as you once took up his. Your heart calls shadows, friends and foes, and your shadow plunges sword into an archer and says, "Come on now, these ones aren't even dead!"

(You take far too much relish in the chance to put the Heavens' Ward down one more time, though. You are Fray and Fray is you and neither of you will ever have _good_ feelings about the highest knights of Ishgard.)

Your heart collapses, and he cries. You don't tell him that you're sorry. He's already the part of you that _is_ sorry. There's no point.

With both of them made something of flesh and substance, your anger and your sorrow, all you really feel is hollowed out. An empty space around a flame, like some strange lamp, a light meaningless without the shadows.

You take them back, and they come willing, and then you help Rielle sit against Sid's side and the three of you sit together there for a long, long time.

\----

They go home. You have one more job to do, first.

No matter how much of a monster your own heart might produce, the one created by Ilberd's twisted feelings is far greater.

It's no wonder Zenos takes it for himself.

( _ **No flame and no abyss in that one, but not for lack of trying. Poor bastard. It's like he was never really alive in the first place.**_ )

\----

In the end, nobody kills Zenos yae Galvus.

In the end, life kills Zenos yae Galvus.

_ In the end, he called us a friend. And we couldn't stop him. _

_**In the end, he learned what living is, boy. He learned, and it was too much for him. He touched the fire and he burned.** _

In the end, Estinien puts holes in Nidhogg's eyes, muttering to an unseen shade, and you - 

You take another corpse's sword in your hands, angry, and this time you wipe the blood off before you take it home with you.

\----

You go home. But first, you stand vigil, living - 

"It's a beautiful sword," Count Edmont says. "Thinking of putting away that monster on your back?"

You shake your head. You already have enough ghosts dragging fingers through your soul. The last thing you need is another.

( _ **You never know. Maybe someday we'll get to put it through his father. Wouldn't that be fitting?**_ )

\----

You go home. It's late, and Rielle is asleep, and Sid isn't wearing his armor when you open the door.

It doesn't take long for you to take yours off, to climb onto his lap where he sits, half-asleep, having tried to stay up waiting for you - 

Maybe Lakshmi was onto something, with all her whispered words of bliss, after all.

_** We'll be okay. ** _


End file.
